Bogdan Fiedur talks about Blockchian, Ethereum, Bitcoin, ICOs: E-Business-Success-Blueprint

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Thursday, October 31, 2013

Affiliate program - Building Traffic Part 6

Previous lesson...

Affiliate program

Starting your own affiliate program is a must for your business. An affiliate program is a strategic partnership that allows your visitors and customers to resell your services for a commission.

In essence, your affiliates are your virtual salespeople. In order to encourage participation, you’ll need to offer higher commissions. The higher the commissions percentage you offer, the more affiliates will promote you. If your margin is low, you won’t be able to offer high commissions but you should diligently search for affiliates who are in similar business to yours who are interested in promoting your site anyway due to possible high conversion rate.

E.g. if you are selling car insurance, car dealerships might be interested in promoting you in exchange for commissions . However, if you’re selling digital product and you’re offering lower commissions (30% or lower), you likely won’t generate enough interest to justify the effort. In these instances, 50% commissions are considered standard.

Some time ago when I initially started my affiliate program, my business grew by about 400% within one year. In all honesty, I didn’t know how to handle the new business. In fact, I received so much traffic that my slow web server couldn’t handle it. I then selected a few choice affiliates. After much trial and error, I learned how to decipher between the serious affiliates and those that were literally trying to trick the system.

In a nutshell, the affiliate program can be an indispensable solution for your business but you have to be willing to work through any kinks. You have to be willing to learn from your mistakes. You also must partake of the 80/20 rule. This rule stipulates that 80% of your affiliates will produce 20% of your income and vice versa. Your goal is to notice the top producers and to reward them appropriately.

I typically offer 20% commissions to my average affiliate and 25% to those who are in the top 30 for the month. Gold Members get paid 30% commissions.

I’ve also learned that you should arrange your affiliate program in such a way that it offers second level commissions. This motivates your affiliates to sign up new affiliates. I then offer a 5% commissions from the second level. Notice that this is not MLM pay commission structure but is considered a two-tiered affiliate program.

Since affiliates are only paid when the sales are completed, there is no risk for you. You should be interested in having as many affiliates as possible.

Here are the components for an affiliate program to function properly.

You need a website with a domain name. (If you have no domain name, nobody will treat you seriously and won’t join your affiliate program)
You must have a suitable product to sell.
You must utilize tracking/reporting and follow-up components where you can check up on your affiliates.

It is quite easy to setup an affiliate program today. There are various companies offering affiliate solution where ongoing fees are applied and you can buy ready to use solutions and install them on your web server.
If you chose to hire a company to manage your affiliates for you, there are several companies who can do this. They will track your affiliate’s sales and will pay them commissions. They will also notify you whenever your affiliate has made a sale and will handle invoicing as well.

Such known companies are Commission Junction and Click bank.
To signup with Click bank, please visit http://adlandpro.reseller.hop.clickbank.net
To signup with commission Junctions, please visit. http://www.cj.com

You should also understand that if you use a third party tracking company to track and report on your affiliates, this will cost you more.
Once you start your own affiliate program, you may wish to submit it to various affiliate directories so affiliates can learn about unique opportunities.

With this in mind, please visit http://www.associateprograms.com to announce your new affiliate product.

Bogdan Fiedur

Adlandpro.com Copyright 1998 - 2013 - All rights reserved .

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Classified Ads Cont - Building Traffic Part 5 - E-Business Success Blueprint Workshop - Part 25

Previous lesson..

Another important point about classified ads.

Online classified ads can be an effective means of advertising, if they are well written, targeted to specific audience and placed on online classified sites which have substantial traffic.

They however should be placed in the right category. For instance, you wouldn’t place a business opportunity in the health section and vice versa.

Lastly, since classified systems usually displays newer ads ahead of the older ads, your ad will continuously slide down and eventually skip to the next page and then second until nobody will see it. Therefore, it is paramount that you renew your ads and resubmit them. Some paid services will keep your ad at the top of their page for the duration of the service.

For example, visit for more information.

Many professionals use free online classifieds ads to test their offer. They then quickly see if their ad works or doesn’t work.

Another option is to build your mailing list using free online classifieds ads by offering subscription to interesting newsletter and offering free e-books or samples.

Classified ads in online newsletters Classified ads can be also placed in e-zines. Ezines stands for electronic newsletters. Some Ezine publishers will accept free ads from their subscribers and publish them at the end of the publication or mix with the content. Placing your ad in the ezine can be even more effective than online classified sites since ezines are delivered by email and usually cover a very narrow target audience.

The best way to find online newsletters is to visit sites like those described in the initial parts of this workshpo and subscribe to newsletters of interests and monitor them for some time.

Approach newsletter owners and offer to exchange ads between your newsletter and theirs for maximum exposure.

Once you know who the editor is and what kind of audience is reading it, tailor your ads toward that audience.

Once you know that your ad is working well, you can even purchase some more ads or exchange them for other services or products.

Adlandpro offers several newsletters in several topics. One of them is called Adland Digest and has been in existence since 1998. I’m still accepting quality ads. For additional information, visit You can review recent archives here.

Check links below for directories of e-zines.
http://new-list.com , http://www.newsletteraccess.com

Are classified ads the best way to go?

Let me be honest with you. There are zillions of classifieds sites on the internet and some of them are good and some are not so good. Therefore, your job is to weed out the good ones that receive very good traffic and use them over and over again. This will ensure that you only post ads on sites that have really great traffic.

And lastly, don’t forget about Adlandpro Classifieds. Our site is in the top 5,300 sites in the world according to Alexa as of this writing and we receive tens of thousands hits per day.

To take advantage of this wonderful opportunity, please place your new ad here.

Next Lesson

Bogdan Fiedur
Adlandpro.com Copyright 1998 - 2013 - All rights reserved .

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Classified Ads - Building Traffic Part 4 - E-Business Success Blueprint Workshop - Part 24

Free online classified ads   Previous article

Free online classified ads are one great way of getting visibility. Online classified sites are ad directories where the content of the ad is provided by the advertiser. By visiting free classified sites, you can submit your free ads and check out other ads of your competitors as well.

The great thing about online advertising is it is multidimensional. You reach people from all walks of life. In addition, it is free and if you find that it isn’t working out, you can just drop it at no cost.
How do classified ads work?

You might have already experienced that you can place ads free or paid and have no response at all. This is nothing unusual or new. Newbie marketers quite often have no basic understanding how advertising works and they don’t realize that with small classified ads, you only have a very short time to catch the attention of the surfer so you have to make those moments count.

People typically make purchasing decisions based on their emotions. In fact, we periodically use associative memory, meaning that if our mind is expecting to see something, it will see it sometimes even those things do not truly exist. Our mind creates it. This is where we come in as advertisers.

Our goal is to determine so called “hot buttons” which we can press and our visitors will then use their emotions to make their purchasing decisions. You have to make your ads stand out because individuals typically read more than one ad at a time. So, if you don’t have a catchy or memorable headline, you won’t typically catch the visitor’s attention. In fact, your classified ad should be some memorable that readers, have to glance at the rest of your article for fear that they’ll miss something important.

Here is a list of certain facts which affect our buying decisions:

Shopping triggers

A person needs to see specific ad up to 7 times to feel familiar with it and make a buying decision. Therefore, if your ad has only been seen once, you shouldn’t expect anyone to buy from you. They’ll need to see it six more times to feel comfortable enough to take advantage of your offer. In next lessons I will explain how to capture your visitor’s email address.
We are more likely to buy an item if the product or service has been endorsed by some known personality.
People enjoy thinking about themselves most of the time. They think about problems they have and things they want. Therefore, successful ads list benefits. They tell them what the product will do for them and what they will lose if they don’t have it.
You should only target one issue at a time. If you have a store with vitamins, don’t say Come and get the vitamins from me. They are the best vitamins in the world. Instead ask them in one ad if they have cholesterol problem and in the other heart condition and take them to specific page which specifically addresses these problems.
Everyone wants to get things cheaper than they are being sold for. By offering discounts for your first buying customers, or free delivery or free samples.
We quite often make our decision based on direct embedded commands in the surrounding environment. When you see a green light you proceed forward. When you see a red light you stop. When someone looks at you and smiles you will smile back. To take advantage of this, use commands in your ad. Say something like Click Here or Select One Item from the list. People will subconsciously follow your commands.
People like to see other people who are enthusiastic and happy. Express happiness in your ad and enthusiasm. Demonstrate how the product will bring them happiness.
The net feels very anonymous. It is harder to gain somebody’s trust on the net than in real life. Always display a phone number in the ad that customers can call with any questions if they want.
People quickly detect that somebody wants to sell them something and they build instant resistance to it. They don’t want to feel like they’re being pressured. Therefore, do not make your ad sound pushy.
Most people are visual. They see patterns and if your ad stands out they will notice it first. Use indentation in the body of your ad. e.g. First Line Second Line Third Line. Your ad will look differently than any other one. It won’t follow the pattern of majority of the ads.
Utilize a clever mixture of upper and lower case letters to differentiate from the crowed. A sample ad might read: IMPORTANT, This offer is only for our first time customers.
We are used to certain words or expressions such as warning, caution announcement, or excitement. Such words if written with upper case letters will have double impact. E.g. WARNING, CONGRATULATIONS, DON’T DO THAT, STOP, ANNOUNCING

Things to avoid

Don’t use misleading headlines. You might get a visitor to your site but you will make him/her only angry and you will guarantee that they won’t use your site in the future. E.g. Your account has been deleted will not generate sale.
Don’t exaggerate in your ads. This will usually have an adverse effect on customers.
Don’t list features of your product or service. Instead list benefits.
Don’t use your name in the heading unless you are known brand name in the niche area.
Don’t use italics in your ad heading. They are harder to read and will likely be skipped.
Don’t type everything with upper case letters. This is considered as shouting on the internet.
Don’t use your real email address when placing your ad. Free classified sites are frequently spidered by unethical email harvesters who sell them later to naive marketers. Use some temporary email address.

As an exercise write 10 different ads promoting your business which are focusing on different factors influencing our buying decision

Next Lesson...

Bogdan Fiedur
Adlandpro.com Copyright 1998 - 2013 - All rights reserved .

Wednesday, August 07, 2013

Press release - Building Traffic Part 3 - E-Business Success Blueprint Workshop - Part 23

Press Release

Previous lesson..

Send out press releases.

If you create a dynamic release, you will receive publicity and get even more exposure. A press release is an inexpensive way to tell the world about your great product or service. It is a way to get your name out there. I highly recommend that you submit your press release to web based press release companies like http://www.prweb.com.

They have national exposure.

Although anyone can draft a press release, not everyone can draft one that gets publicity from the local or national media. Therefore, you have to make sure that your press releases outshine the competition.

You have to make sure that it truly describes your product or service in a unique way. A good press release provides a reporter with a unique angle and makes them want to delve deeper into the story. A bad press release gets thrown in the trash without a second glance.

Your best bet when drafting a story is to follow your daily newspaper and your local TV station and see what type of story reporters typically cover. Find out what topics are hot and then write up a powerful article that hits one of those hot topics while linking to your story. For instance, if you’re a resume writer and you write a press release about the recent increase in unemployment then you have a newsworthy topic.

Once you find a newsworthy topic and write your article, send them directly to newspapers. If the media picks up your story, you’ll get free promotion published by a third party. This kind of promotion is much more powerful than any that you could purchase for a fee.

There are several instances when a good press release will work wonders:

New Press Release

a. If you are controversial (be careful)
b. If you are solving a problem
c. If you appear to be out of ordinary. (being “nuts” is not part of this option)

Just remember that when you write your press release that you don’t write your entire story. Just write specific points that may generate media interest. After all, you want the media to contact you for more information.

In addition, you also have to pay close attention to how you format your release and you have to make sure that your release doesn’t exceed one page.

At the top of your Press Release, put your title and use larger font than text in the body. Make it catchy, creative and attention-gathering..

Below the title in the left side of the page write.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

On the same level in the right side of the page write

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT

and give your name and phone number and/or email address. Remember you want them to call you for more info.

Now use subtitle in the same font and elaborate on your headline. Create your story. Below that, state what problem you are solving or what your story is. Be specific and make it interesting.

Below that, add some bulleted points that further explain your main points. Tease your readers and make them want more. Include quotations as needed.

Below include your credentials. Write it like somebody else would be saying this. E.g. Bogdan Fiedur runs his internet business for over 14 years and has helped thousands of entrepreneurs drive quality targeted traffic to their websites. His site is in the top 6,000 sites in the world and he receives 30,000 visitors a day.

Include some additional information about your accomplishments and end your press release with three pound signs like this.

# # #

Then, read it, proof it and then ask someone else to proofread and critique it. Tweak it and send it off. Once you’re done, feel proud of what a great job you did!
There are several things to avoid when crafting your release:

Don’t send your press release to your entire contact list. Make the contact list relevant to your article.
Avoid spelling and grammatical mistakes.
Don’t use buzzwords or big corporation style. Be personal and make it sound like your press release comes from an individual.
Don’t buy lists offering media contacts. Most of them will be either outdated or never existed in the first place. Instead conduct your own research to find suitable contacts. You can find them using online and offline sources.

Where do I find media contacts?

Start with your local newspaper, television or radio station.
Contact your local Chamber of Commerce
Check out these websites. http://www.prnewswire.com, http://www.press-release-writing.com

Next lesson..

Bogdan Fiedur
Adlandpro.com Copyright 1998 - 2013 - All rights reserved .

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Word of mouth and social media advertising - Building Traffic Part 2 - E-Business Success Blueprint Workshop - Part 22

Social Media Concept

Previous lesson...

It is sometimes called the world’s best marketing secret. This is because word-of- mouth advertising is more credible than paid recommendations. People tend to believe what friends and family recommend than what advertising tell them. They know that advertisers put their products in the best possible light whereas family and friends don’t sugar coat them. They either like the product or they don’t and they aren’t afraid to say so.
With this in mind, start talking to anyone you know or meet about your site. Pass out business cards with your new website address and give it to everyone. Tell them about your new business and ask them if they can give you any advice or suggestions. They will be much more responsive to this method. Join internet communities and meet members who share your interest. Network online and offline. Get out there and meet people. Here are links to several well established internet networking communities:

http://community.adlandpro.com
http://www.tribe.net

When you realize how much time people spend on places like Facebook ,Twitter, Pinterest and other social networks then understanding how social media marketing can help you in your business becomes understandable. For many people, especially those of you who are used to traditional marketing methods navigating this terrain can often be confusing as well as challenging, which is why I have created this course.
Before jumping into social media marketing it helps to develop a background so that you can make sense out of everything..so back to school time ( for a short while)

Business Card exchange

Social media – what is it really?

While many people have created many definitions for social media my definition is:

”Social Media is a technology used across web and consists of online tools and websites that encourage people to interact with companies, brands, and people. Social media is interactive where you can create a two-way of even a group communication stream, where as with traditional media it is a one way stream an example would be television or print newspapers.

Examples of technology that powers social media are:

Blogs
social networks
podcasts
video sharing sites ( YouTube)
Photo sharing sites
Wikis
Social bookmarks
RSS
Widgets
Google Hangouts
Skype
Google Hangouts

Now that you have a basic understanding that social media is all about technology, now we can go to social networking. Social networking is about people, organizations, companies ( brands) who are going through the process and practice of interacting with each other through networks ( AdlandPro is a social network) for the purpose of sharing,engaging and collaborating with other people. The wonderful thing about social networking is that because it is so interactive, you can talk about anything and people will talk back to you.

Social Networking
When you think of the term “six degrees of separation” and the concept that any two people on the planet could make contact through a chain of no more than 5 other people, then you can look at social networking as a way that helps people make contacts that would be good for them to know and people they wouldn’t otherwise meet. Basically how it works is that you join a social site and invite people that you know – those people invite their own contacts to join and they invite their contacts and the process keeps going for every person.It is safe to say that with the advent social media, people are connecting and have been touched in many ways on a daily basis, from connecting with friends, lost friends, learning the news from all over the world and the way we communicate has been forever changed.

Sorting social friends

Social Media Marketing
As I have just explained social networking is great for entertainment, talking to friends and family, getting the news on any topic you can think of but because you are promoting a business, then you need to learn a new term and that is social media marketing. Social media marketing which in easy to understand terms means marketing the social way using different media such as videos, blogs and social networks to give your company/product exposure which will translate into sales, maybe a better way of wording social media marketing is interactive marketing.
Through the use of the different online tools social media marketing can also be used for other reasons

Research ideas, and learn more about what customers and prospects are saying about their needs and experiences, and about your products and related areas.
Gain new market and competitive insights to improve your products and services.
Create and join conversations with customers, prospects, partners and other constituents about key issues and concerns.
Create positive word-of-mouth about your products and services.
Grow your company’s reputation as a thought leader

Just as 90% of people skip TV commercials the reality is that people will tune out any kind of advertising if they think they are being sold to outright through social networking and when you realize that the average person is exposed to more than 3000 advertising messages every day, then you start to see the challenge of social media marketing when it comes to promoting your business. While this may sound very gloom and doom, the fact that you are reading this and taking it all in, means that you are further a head than many marketers out there, who try to treat social media marketing exactly like traditional marketing.
Some of the differences between traditional marketing and social marketing are:

Social media is interactive
Traditional marketing is a one way conversation

Social media is a one on one marketing
traditional marketing is about mass marketing

Social media marketing is about real time creation
Traditional marketing is about scheduled/pre-produced messages

Social media marketing uses informal language ( having a conversation)
Traditional marketing is about formal language

Social media marketing is about active involvement
Traditional marketing is about passive involvement

Social media marketing is about user generated ( or brand) content
Traditional marketing is professional content

Social media marketing is about authentic content
Traditional marketing is professional content

Social Media marketing is about YOU
Traditional Marketing is about ME

Now that you have an understanding between social media marketing and traditional marketing, is there a right way or a wrong way to tackle social media (marketing)? Many Marketers are under the impression that joining different social networks is enough and that the magic will happen in creating leads or making sales and they would be very wrong!
To have social media marketing really work for you, you need to learn some basics.

1 You will need to join different networks and while some people will say 40, 50 or even 60 social networks, I will say that you need to join those networks where your potential customers will gather and you will have to join enough networks to claim your real estate. The top networks you should be on are

There is a tool called Namechk where you can see if your desired username or vanity URL is still available and I would highly suggest you use it to help in your social media planning.

2. Of the three words in Social Media Marketing the most important one is -> Social. Just like offline, social is about conversations and if all your are going to do is sell, then I can guarantee you won’t get very far. Take the time to socialize, be conversational, offer fresh and interesting content.

3. Your Profile is your resume and a business card! Put thought into building your profile and fill every thing in from music to books to your “bragging rights” People want to know YOU. If you are setting up a business profile of any kind, then take the time to present a professional presence. A good question for you to think about is -how do you feel when you go to a profile and all you see is ” Hi my name is xxxx and here is my product to buy” Talk about you first and then put links to your business in the proper places.

4. What are you waiting for? Get active! Make sure to like, follow others who are like-minded businesses,people who share common likes as you, organizations that mean something to you, groups that have the same interests as you. Make sure you are active and participating in conversations. Yes it all takes time, but it is time well spent and really is the best way to earn friends and brand advocates. Make sure you update on all the networks that you are involved in..people really do have short memories!

5. Part of being active is responding to what people are saying. Be generous with your comments, ask questions, leave well thought out comments on a persons blog, forum topic, Facebook post, a twitter message or a G+ discussion.

6. Support your community! Just as in real life, the relationships you form are special. Like in real life there are gives and takers. Create a good balance of giving and taking. A golden rule to follow would be – show support to your network if you expect them to support you!
I will end this lesson with the two rules of social media marketing:

Rule 1: Be REAL! The people on social networks want to see you for who you are. This doesn’t mean they want to know EVERYTHING about you, but they do want to know if you are real. Putting up a facade will not work and don’t do the smoke and mirrors on people. Be transparent and be willing to share.
Rule 2: You have to be active before the door slams in your face. Join the conversations and make your voice heard.
My next lesson will continue on the journey of social media marketing where I will talk about strategies and social networks.
Till next time, read, think and plan on being active.

Next lesson...

Bogdan Fiedur
Adlandpro.com Copyright 1998 - 2013 - All rights reserved .

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Submit your site to search engines- Building Traffic Part 1 - E-Business Success Blueprint Workshop - Part 21

Web Traffic

Previous lesson...

Now that you have a great product, a marvelous sales letter and are set up to receive credit card payments you need visitors. After all, if no one knows about your product then they can’t buy it, right?

Free ways of producing traffic to your site.

The great news is that there are many free and paid advertising methods that you can use. For the purpose of this workshop, we’ll only discuss free advertising methods.

Here are 12 free methods that consistently work:

1. Submit your website site to search engines
2. Utilize word of mouth advertising
3. Distribute press releases to get immediate exposure
4. Utilize free online classified ads
5. Join an affiliate program or set up one.
6. Create and distribute your own newsletter
7. Join and participate in bulletin boards and online forums
8. Write and publish numerous articles
9. Join discussion groups in your area and demonstrate your expertise.
10. Create a bloggs and safe lists
11. Participate in legitimate traffic exchanges
12. Send a powerful marketing letter to your mailing list

We will go over them in subsequent lessons.

Today submit your site to search engines.

Being found in search engines is very important because people typically utilize various sources to find the product or service they are most interested in. The great news is that you don’t have to pay to be found in search engines.

Today there is handfull of search engines which are important and it takes very little time to submit your site to them. As of today, that the two most important search engines

Google
Baidu
Yahoo
Yandex
Microsoft (Bing and MSN)

There are several other search engines like startpage.com, Ask.com which will be addressed in article below.

Therefore, it is paramount that you submit your site to the larger search engine first and then proceed with the others. For example, Adlandpro receives approximately 600 visitors a day from numerous search engines and 20,000-30,000 direct visitors but we still know the importance of these search engine referrals.

What is search engine ranking?

Search engines logic is not a straightforward one. Although you can be found in search engines, you might never receive a single click from them. This is because you might have a low search engine ranking. For instance, if you’re found as one of the top 10,000 sites for a keyword, you likely won’t be displayed on the first 3-4 pages of the search results and customers typically don’t search past the first 3-4 pages.

This is why you should consider optimizing your site. SEO is Search Engine Optimization and there is an entire industry dedicated to this concept. SEO Companies are very familiar with search engines and algorithms and they ensure that your site is found in search engines for specific terms near the top of the first page. In order to accomplish this, they cleverly reverse engineer ranking algorithms which search engines utilize to determine the relevancy of keywords. Unfortunately their efforts are short-lived.

SEO

Some less scrupulous SEO businesses, utilize tricks to fool search engines into thinking that site is specifically geared for one thing when it isn’t. However, I’ve learned that you shouldn’t use tricky SEO tactics as these can get your site banned. The best way to get traffic to your site is to optimize it, be honest and provide quality content which appeals to humans. Refer to section on Site Design for specifics in regards to SEO.

Submit your site manually to two biggest search engines.
Access this link and submit your site to Google
Access this link on how to submit your site for free to Yahoo
Access this link to Submit your site to Bing.

Read article below on importance of other smaller search engines.

Article: Four Reasons Why the Smaller Search Engines Matter
By Bill Platt

These days, all search engine optimization gurus only seem to talk about Google, as if Google was the only search engine on the Internet.

Of course, we all know that there really are hundreds of search engines and directories available to us, and we know that some of the smaller search engines serve a very tight niche of users.

Honestly, I can understand why there is a lot of press on Google, because after all, granddaddy Google is the biggest of the big. We know that millions of people use Google daily for their search activities, and we know that our websites receive a lot of traffic from Google.

There are actually four reasons why you would want to extend your search engine marketing activities beyond Google. I will discuss each of those reasons here:

Reason #1: Targeted Traffic
Niche content search engines can be a very powerful force in your marketing arsenal. For example, suppose you have a website dedicated to helping sell real estate. Does it make better sense to list a house for sale in Google or in one of the many real estate search engines?

Let's face facts. When we look for tightly focused content such as real estate listings, we generally seek out a search engine that will serve our search the best. When searching for a new home, an individual may begin his or her search at Google to find the real estate search engines, but once the niche search engine has been found, there is no need or desire to return to granddaddy Google.

The real estate search engine will allow the individual to search through cities and neighborhoods, prices, features and pictures, to find just the house they feel might strike their fancy.
Even in the game of Internet marketing, a niche content search engine or directory can be a very powerful addition to your marketing portfolio. It is only a matter of searching out and locating the niche content search engine or directory that serves your particular niche the best.

Reason #2: Costs Management

The Big Three have each developed their own pay-per-click search models. And, because they are the Big Three search engines, they can also afford to charge advertising rates that permit them to be among the most profitable enterprises on the Internet.

The perception of pay-per-click pricing at the Big Three is that the little guy can afford to advertise with them. But with every Internet marketer on the web trying to compete for Big Three search traffic, their five cents per-click easily increases to sixty cents per-click, and in some industries, it can climb to five or fifty dollars per- click.

The pay-per-click "auction mentality" really kicks into hyper-overdrive in some industries. And the Big Three eat it up, as do their stockholders. Each day, they dance their way to the bank with your money in tow.
The smaller niche search engines may not serve as much traffic, but they definitely allow you to reach more people for the same money. You can reach people who are more inclined to buy your goods and services, because they were searching on a niche website, and you can get their traffic for a lot less money than it would cost you to get the same prospect from any of the Big Three search engines.

Reason #3: Linking for Google Placement

For those of you who are still involved in the Google PageRank chase, the smaller search directories can be counted on as a really valuable asset in your linking portfolio.
Many of the smaller search directories carry some pretty decent PageRank with them. For example:
Blog-Search.com carries a PR6. Search66.com carries a PR6. GoArticles.com carries a PR6. SearchWarp.com carries a PR5. SitesOnDisplay.com carries a PR5. SearchRamp.com carries a PR5. MixCat.com carries a PR5. TorontoMalls.com carries a PR5. OutdoorHits.com carries a PR4. FindYourForum.com carries a PR4.

As you are already aware, the PageRank of a website that is pointing to your website plays a role in determining the value of your own website in the Google PageRank calculations, thereby increasing your chances of gaining ground in the Google SERP's (Search Engine Result Pages).

Targeted directories pass their PageRank value to the websites that list with them, which is great for your website. Additionally, getting placed into these directories is often cheaper and easier to accomplish, than with any other method of linking for the purposes of increasing PageRank.

Reason #4: Extra Traffic

Yahoo, Bing, ExactSeek.com, and many others are making changes, improving their results, and trying to position themselves to compete toe-to-toe with Google or to compete for searchers not happy with Google's search product (yes, there are actually people out there who do not like to use Google). These non-Google engines are currently serving millions of additional searches a day or month. The Big Three: Google, Yahoo and Bing only served 75% of the Internet's search traffic in Aug 2012 http://searchenginewatch.com/reports/article.php/3099931). These percentages are based on a rough estimation of just over 173 billion searches per month.

For December 2012, the search landscape was like this:

Google: 114.7 billion searches, 65.2% share
Baidu: 14.5 billion searches, 8.2% share
Yahoo: 8.6 billion searches, 4.9% share
Yandex: 4.8 billion searches, 2.8% share
Microsoft: 4.5 billion searches, 2.5% share
Others: 28.7 billion searches, 16.3% share

If your search engine marketing activities are focused only on the Big Three, or even worse, only on granddaddy Google, you are throwing away anywhere from 20% to 35% of your potential customer base!

Locating The Smaller Search Engines and Directories...

Below are a few resources that can help to find hundreds of the smaller search engines and directories that may be available to you:
Independent Search Engine & Directory Network Yahoo Search Engine & Directory Listings International Directory of Search Engines

Small Search Engines and Directories Really Do Matter...
I have just outlined four reasons why the smaller search engines and niche directories should matter to those of us who market our goods and services on the Internet. I have also given you a starting point for locating these excellent search websites.

Sure, it might take a little bit more time to get listed in these smaller resources, but if you calculate how much time you spend developing your positioning in the Big Three, then it really is not that much of a time investment after all.

The smaller directories can help us to improve our Google PageRank. They can help us to get more mileage from our advertising dollars than what we can get from the Big Three. They allow us to tap into additional sources of targeted traffic with a real potential for increasing our sales and profits.

About The Author Bill Platt is the owner of thePhantomWriters.com Article Distribution Service. He has been ghost writing for clients since 1999, and he has been distributing client articles since 2001. Bill regularly maintains his database of submission resources, and he applies the human touch to every article distribution. By reviewing every article and manually selecting where it will be distributed, publishers and webmasters trust that he will send only the most appropriate articles to them.

In addition you can check out this fine slide show which will show you all resources needed to get you high traffic to your website these days.

Next lesson...

Bogdan Fiedur
Adlandpro.com Copyright 1998 - 2013 - All rights reserved .

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Accepting Payments- Credit Cards, Bank transfers, Checks - E-Business Success Blueprint Workshop - Part 20

Accepting Payments - Credit Cards, Bank transfer, Checks

Online Payments

Previous lesson..

For the sake of this course, we’ll assume that you will only utilize one form of payment, Paypal.

PayPal is the leading third party processor utilized by millions of people. It allows you to send payments by email and allows you to accept credit card and bank payments as well. The great thing about PayPal is that you don’t need a merchant’s account to get started. In addition, it doesn’t cost you to sign up. It is free. You will however pay a transaction free for every credit card transaction that you receive.

Signup for PayPal account

PayPal logo

Start here for free.

After you’ve accessed the link and set up your account, you’ll have to decide whether to apply for a Personal Account or Business Account. A business Account allows you to receive payments in your business name and a Personal Account is to be utilized personally. Most business owners choose the business account and I highly recommend that you do so also.

When you set up your account, you’ll be asked to provide a valid credit card or bank account number. PayPal will make two small transactions to it and you’ll have to log in and input the amount of these transactions onto PayPal system. Once you do this, your account is thought to be “verified.”

After you get your account set up, you’ll then create Buy Now Buttons. Don’t fret. PayPal makes it very easy for you and providers users with a two page setup wizard where you answer several questions including your product name, price of item, type of currency you wish to utilize, etc and then they create a customized button just for you.

PayPal then offers you html code and you can place this code into your website.
The really great thing is that you don’t need to know html or any programming to accomplish this task. You simply need to place this code on your site.

Highlight-->copy-->paste.

Obtain PayPal html for your “Buy button”.

Login into your PayPal account by accessing PayPal main site here.
http://www.paypal.com

Once you are inside click “Merchant Services” tab.

Merchant Services - PayPal

Right on that page you will see options to create buttons. When you click "Buy Now Button" link, you will see form like the one below.
Choose button type. For the sake of this exercise, chose "Buy Now".
Give it a name and or item ID if you want to use it for your accounting.
Enter price and chose currency.

If you want use custom options. Play with them and click "Example" link to see preview and understand purpose of those.

Enter shipping price and or tax if applicable.

After you complete step one, PayPal gives you option to track your inventory and other advenced options like providing url to which customer will be sent when order is completed. This might be thank you page or page with product to download or further instructions.

Creating PayPal Button

You can also provide a link to which customer will be sent if they have cancelled the payment.
You could inquire on this page why the customer decided not to continue with the purchase and keep dialog going.

There are other options available on this page and the next page.
What if PayPal doesn't offer options to purchase in your currency?

Consider https://www.payza.com/

Payza is similar to PayPal and might offer payment options in your country where PyaPal is yet not available.

Next lesson....

Bogdan Fiedur
Adlandpro.com Copyright 1998 - 2013 - All rights reserved .

Thursday, October 31, 2013

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